Why am I me?

[R-e-n-n-a-t]

Being conscious individually, as I assume everyone else is, the question comes to mind; why do I exist from a 1st person point of view? Obviously I couldn't exist from a 3rd person POV, but when I die it'll seem to me as if the world ends; MY world will end. How can I explain this... When you sleep without dreaming everything is nonremembered, and seems 'black'. If death is the same, then it'll be lights out for eternity, and therefore I'm wondering why I'm conscious to begin with. Why me? Why here? Why now? Why at all? etc.

Any answers or ideas? I've asked my friends and family, but they don't really grasp the concept of the question.

[Anomalocaris]

Because no one else will let you be him or her.

[Ace Otana]

Being conscious individually, as I assume everyone else is, the question comes to mind; why do I exist from a 1st person point of view? Obviously I couldn't exist from a 3rd person POV, but when I die it'll seem to me as if the world ends; MY world will end. How can I explain this... When you sleep without dreaming everything is nonremembered, and seems 'black'. If death is the same, then it'll be lights out for eternity, and therefore I'm wondering why I'm conscious to begin with. Why me? Why here? Why now? Why at all? etc.

Any answers or ideas? I've asked my friends and family, but they don't really grasp the concept of the question.

A very complex question. One that isn't so easily answered.

I can speak of death and help give an idea of what being dead is like but on the how and why we are here and in this unique body and mind is beyond me.

We have all been dead. We each have been dead for billions of years. When dead, not only will vision and sound be gone but everything we once could perceive. Our very consciousness will be gone.
Time and space will no longer have any meaning to you. Billions of years would pass and you'll never be aware of it. Fear, hate, lust and love will no longer have any meaning to you. The world from it's point of view is rid of you, but from your POV, you are rid of the world.
I see our existence as nothing more than a taster, a taste of what it is to exist, to look around and wonder. We will have to give it up whether we like it or not. I find the idea interesting that everything we see and understand will one day have no meaning to us. Whether we do good or bad, death is equal to all.

[Anomalocaris]

A very complex question. One that isn't so easily answered.

I can speak of death and help give an idea of what being dead is like but on the how and why we are here and in this unique body and mind is beyond me.

We have all been dead. We each have been dead for billions of years. When dead, not only will vision and sound be gone but everything we once could perceive. Our very consciousness will be gone.
Time and space will no longer have any meaning to you. Billions of years would pass and you'll never be aware of it. Fear, hate, lust and love will no longer have any meaning to you. The world from it's point of view is rid of you, but from your POV, you are rid of the world.
I see our existence as nothing more than a taster, a taste of what it is to exist, to look around and wonder. We will have to give it up whether we like it or not. I find the idea interesting that everything we see and understand will one day have no meaning to us. Whether we do good or bad, death is equal to all.

I will be less poetic and say you are you simply because your brain has been wired to perceive a collection of stimuli that corresponds to your physical body, you feelings and your thoughts as a discrete, highly preferred entity; and this wiring was in place long before evolution added to your brain the additional features that enable you to wonder why this is so, what alternatives are there for you other than being you, what happened before you began, and what will happen after you end.

The longer story might be that once matter has been organized by evolution into system potentially capable of thinking, it was likely advantageous for that system to be able to conceptualize itself as something distinct from everything else. This is because harm to any part of the system harms that system's overall ability to reproduce itself, so a thinking system that includes circuitry which separately conceptualize "self" and "not self" when planning its own actions would enjoy advantages in dealing with the world compared to another thinking system which treats its own left foot just like another rock its right foot could tread on. Hence progress towards circuits that give you your concept of self would be preferred and over time this preference would steer the ancestor of your genes towards organizing circuitry that give you yours sense of self.

Why don't we have circuits that allow ourselves to perceive ourselves as someone else? Well, we do. There is evidence that when you put yourself in someone else's shoes, you are not just using general purpose thinking circuits to rationally deduce what the other must think and feel. Cringing when seeing someone else hit in the gonads does not appear to involve much thinking. Instead, you seem to be invoking a dedicated set of circuitry that enables you to rapidly simulate someone else's mental predicament in your own head ahead of any thinking. Empathy doesn't come wholly from thought. Evolution probably did this because social creatures that can empathize probably does better in building social bonds than those who don't, hence gene pools with the empathy gene would be at an advantage to those that lack this gene.

But you can also imagine if you live in someone else's shoes full time that would be harmful to your own survival. Starving yourself to death because you are empathizing with another's need for food is in most cases not good for keeping your empathy gene in the gene pool. An exception might be if the other happens to be your own brood. This may be why we tend to reflexively empathize more with our children's feelings than anyone else.

So while we have circuits to perceive self, and we have circuits to put ourselves in another's shoes, we also seem to have genetic determinates that adjust the weight of the self-circuit relative to the weight of the empathy circuit depending on how important the one we empathize with is to the survival not only of ourselves, but our genes. Any one whose circuit for putting him or herselves in someone else's shoes is too strong or too weak relative to the other person's importance to the survival of one's own gene is less likely to survive to pass this trait onto his descendants. This system was firmly in place long before we acquired additional brian power for idle extrapolation, and for escapist fantasies when confronted with the observation that the highly prefered self is likely to end inspite of our best effort. Hence our evolutionarily derived mental equipment conditioned the basic properties of religion we invented. A stronger case can hardly be made for material evolution by natural selection of heritable trait, rather than intelligent design, as the cause not only of our physical bodies, but also what we perceive to be our soul.

Hence you are you and not someone else, but you feel empathy for someone else, because evolution found these circuits, and their relative strengths in different conditions, good for the survival of your line of ancestry.

[Existentialist]

when I die it'll seem to me as if the world ends; MY world will end. How can I explain this... When you sleep without dreaming everything is nonremembered, and seems 'black'. If death is the same, then it'll be lights out for eternity, and therefore I'm wondering why I'm conscious to begin with. Why me? Why here? Why now? Why at all? etc.

Any answers or ideas? I've asked my friends and family, but they don't really grasp the concept of the question.

It's problematic to compare death to sleeping without dreaming. In sleep our brains continue to function. In death we don't actually have a functioning brain. We can observe others who are not functioning, but we can never experience ourselves not functioning. There is therefore no such thing as subjective death, either before or after our spell of living. And since our death viewed by another person isn't our experience, we can have no awareness of what it is like to be dead, infact wondering it is pointless. It certainly can't be compared to black or lights out - these are relative concepts, and in death we have no comparators.

Therefore, I wouldn't worry about it. The only thing we can experience is life. Death has no meaning for us. Obviously it's different if someone else dies (we get upset). But we can't put ourselves in their shoes, because to put yourself in another's shoes, you have to have some experience that is comparable to what they are experiencing.

Life, and everything in it, is the only experience I will ever have. The experience of one's own death doesn't exist. This is a good basis for optimism.

Obviously at some point we will all experience a crisis of the viability of our bodies. That could be quite distressing, I'd hope to have access to some calming drugs by that stage, infact I think I'd rather not be aware of it. But to be apprehensive about what will happen after that crisis is over and our bodies are no longer viable isn't logical. Rethinking that bit is a good way of preparing for this final crisis.

[ib.me.ub]

Why am I me?

You can only be yourself.

If death is the same, then it'll be lights out for eternity

Yes, it will be.

I'm wondering why I'm conscious to begin with.

Because of evolution.

Why me?

You are one of many.

Why here?

The conditions are correct.

Why now?

Our time is now.

Why at all?

?

[TheDarkestOfAngels]

Being conscious individually, as I assume everyone else is, the question comes to mind; why do I exist from a 1st person point of view? Obviously I couldn't exist from a 3rd person POV, but when I die it'll seem to me as if the world ends; MY world will end. How can I explain this... When you sleep without dreaming everything is nonremembered, and seems 'black'. If death is the same, then it'll be lights out for eternity, and therefore I'm wondering why I'm conscious to begin with. Why me? Why here? Why now? Why at all? etc.

Any answers or ideas? I've asked my friends and family, but they don't really grasp the concept of the question.

You are you and you are here now because you couldn't be anyone else, anywhere else, anywhen else. Pretty much the same reason we're all here.

I can't say what'll happen when I die, but I imagine it'll be like when my computer shuts down.
I'll go through every file in my memory, save, and shut down permanently and that'll be it.

What happens after that is purely speculation. I don't think it'll be anything like sleep. When you sleep, your brain is asleep - still active but on power-save mode because your brain needs a break or it'll overheat if continuously active for more than half a week to a week or so. I hope not to find out for another seventy years unless circumstance shortens or extends my stay in the mortal coil.

[Loki_999]

Have you checked the instruction manual? I usually just toggle a switch to go to Third person view. Ariel view is good as well if you can find an appropriate satellite to hook into and its a clear day.

Ok, seriously...

When you die it will not seem to you as if the world will end. It won't seem like anything. Your brain will cease to function, you will be dead.

As for why you? You are falling into the theist trap. You are a result of your biology, not your biology is a result of you. Not sure if i can say it any better.

You are you thanks to the specific genetic mix that occured when the little tadpole beat the other tadpoles to the prize that was the egg. This was the foundation for the creation of you. The egg develops (hopefully without errors) and eventually you get a little child which is already closer to the you who exists today. As that baby grows the you inside it is moulded and shaped by the events and environment around the child, until we end up with the you that is you that exists today.

The you that exists in the future is another you with more experience and external influences having shaped you.

You are a product, an end result, an effect, not a cause. You exist because of how things happened. If your mum and dad had sex on a different day, then you would never have been born. Maybe if your dad had climaxed at a slightly different time, or they were having sex in a different position then it is possible that you would not be you. A different sperm would have won the race resulting in a different child. Even the same sperm winning the race in different conditions could possibly produce a different you. Consider, if straight after conception your mum became a vegan, which would have altered her body's balance of chemicals (probably not good to do when pregnant). This could have resulted in a deficiency in the formation of the embryo leading to you being born with some sort of disability... would you still have been you? Would you still have the same world view if you had been born with a missing limb or some mental deficiency? If you had gone to a "special" school.

Even not considering the biological aspect, would you have been you if a) you had been orphaned at a very young age and grew up in the caring loving environment of a Catholic orphanage *cough* and b) you had been brought up as you were, and c) you had been brought up by apes because your parents lost you when visiting the african wilderness, and d) if you had grown up living in the 'hood running with gangs, stealing food or whatever in order to survive.

Think about it.

[The Omnissiunt One]

Why are you you? This is somewhat tautologous. In answer, I'll just say: why not?

[R-e-n-n-a-t]

I am not falling into a theist trap; I understand that I am the result of evolved electrical and chemical signals in my brain. That's not the point. The point more or less, in a dumbed-down version for people below this philosophical point (yes, whoever said "theist trap", you annoyed me) is why now? That's a simpler way of putting it. And don't just answer "because now is now", or "why not". That's also not the point. Of all the people who had lived before, now they are all unaware and dead, obviously. But I am not; I am currently aware, as are you all. I'm not asking "why are people aware?"; I'm asking "How is it me who is aware of myself at this time from a 1st person POV." I'm sure most of you have the ability to grasp this question, you probably just never thought to think of it in the imaginary terms that I now see it.

Why am I me?

You can only be yourself.

If death is the same, then it'll be lights out for eternity

Yes, it will be.

I'm wondering why I'm conscious to begin with.

Because of evolution.

Why me?

You are one of many.

Why here?

The conditions are correct.

Why now?

Our time is now.

Why at all?

?

OK, you definitely missed the point. This question flew right over your head; I'm not religious, I know all of what you said and I understand it. I'm asking something else entirely.
I give up trying to explain; you just have to be able to conceptualize the question yourself I guess. Most of you seem to have missed the point and think I'm asking why I'm me, or why I'm conscious. That's not the point.